General Electric Co. v. Jewel Incandescent Lamp Co.’s Empirical Analysis
326 U.S. 242 · 1945
Citation profile
143 federal appellate · 74 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 405 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2019 · most notably Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. v. Walker (1946), Wl Gore Associates Inc v. Garlock Inc (1983)
143 federal appellate · 74 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedGeneral Electric Co. v. Jewel Incandescent Lamp Co. (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Corona Cord Tire Co. v. Dovan Chemical Corp. · Radio Corporation of America v. Radio Engineering Laboratories · DeForest Radio Co. v. General Electric Co. · Ansonia Brass & Copper Co. v. Electrical Supply Co.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 405 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[The patentee] found latent qualities in an old discovery and adapted it to a useful end. But that did not advance the frontiers of science in this narrow field so as to satisfy the exacting standards of our patent system. Where there has been use of an article or where the method of its manufacture is known, more than a new advantage of the product must be discovered in order to claim invention.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If A without mentioning the element of strength patented a bulb which was extra strong, B could not obtain a patent on the bulb because of its strength, though he was the first to recognize that feature of it.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is not invention to perceive that the product which others had discovered had qualities they failed to detect.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.